[1069 BCE – 333 BCE] Twilight of a Dynasty

Our story begins in 1069 BCE, not with a bang, but with a fracture. The great Ramesses XI, last king of the glorious New Kingdom, is dead, and with him dies the unified strength of the Two Lands. Egypt, once a monolithic power whose influence stretched from Nubia to the Euphrates, was now a house divided. In the north, in the new Delta capital of Tanis, a line of pharaohs ruled, but their authority was a shadow of what it had been. To the south, in the ancient religious heartland of Thebes, the High Priests of the god Amun-Ra governed as de facto kings, controlling vast estates and the loyalty of the people. The land that had been defined by divine, singular kingship for two millennia was now split. This division bred weakness and opportunism. The hallowed Valley of the Kings, once a secure eternal resting place for gods on Earth, was systematically plundered by organized gangs, its treasures stripped to fund the competing powers. The gold of Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great was melted down, a potent symbol of a golden age melting away into memory. Into this power vacuum stepped new men. For centuries, Libyan tribesmen had settled in the fertile Nile Delta, serving as soldiers and assimilating into Egyptian society. Now, their descendants saw their chance. In 945 BCE, a military leader of Libyan descent named Shoshenq I ascended the throne, founding the 22nd Dynasty. He was no foreign barbarian; he was an Egyptian king who reunited the country through shrewd politics and military might. He famously campaigned into the Levant, sacking Jerusalem and carrying off treasures from its temple—an event recorded in the Hebrew Bible, where he is known as Shishak. While the grand temple-building of the New Kingdom slowed, the era was not without its splendor. In Tanis, archaeologists in the 20th century would uncover the intact tomb of King Psusennes I, a contemporary of the Theban High Priests, revealing a breathtaking funerary mask of solid gold and a coffin wrought from pure silver, a metal even rarer than gold in Egypt. It was a stunning reminder that even in its twilight, the wealth of the pharaohs could still defy imagination. While the Libyans consolidated their rule in the north, another power was stirring far to the south, in the land of Nubia, or Kush. For centuries, Nubia had been an Egyptian colony, its culture deeply influenced by its northern neighbor. Now, with Egypt fragmented, the Kushite kings based in their capital of Napata saw themselves not as conquerors, but as the true preservers of Egyptian tradition. They viewed the Libyan-ruled north as having fallen into impiety and decay. Around 744 BCE, the Kushite king Piye launched a holy war, sweeping north with his army to “cleanse” Egypt and restore the proper worship of Amun. His victory stela describes a man of profound piety who was more interested in restoring temples and securing the favor of the gods than in plunder. Piye and his successors formed the 25th Dynasty, the era of the “Black Pharaohs.” They ruled over a combined empire stretching from the heart of modern Sudan to the Mediterranean, ushering in a renaissance of art and architecture that deliberately copied the style of the Old and Middle Kingdoms. In their Nubian homeland, they even revived the practice of pyramid building for their tombs—smaller, steeper, and more numerous than their Giza counterparts, but a clear statement of their claim as the rightful heirs of pharaonic civilization. The Kushite reunification placed Egypt directly in the path of the era’s rising superpower: the ruthless and technologically advanced Neo-Assyrian Empire. The clash was inevitable. For decades, the two empires battled for control of the Levant. The Assyrians, masters of iron weaponry and brutal siege warfare, pushed relentlessly south. The conflict reached a horrifying climax in 664 BCE when the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal marched his armies deep into Egypt and sacked the holy city of Thebes. They plundered its temples, tore down its monuments, and carried off its people. The psychological shock was immense; the inviolable city of Amun had been defiled. Yet from these ashes, a native Egyptian resurgence began. A cunning Egyptian prince from the Delta city of Sais, Psamtik I, allied himself with the Assyrians to oust the Kushites, then shrewdly used Greek and Carian mercenaries—a new and formidable force in the region—to expel his Assyrian patrons and reunite Egypt under his sole rule in 656 BCE. This marked the beginning of the 26th Dynasty and the Saite Renaissance, a final, brilliant flash of native Egyptian glory. Trade flourished, particularly with the Greek world, and a wave of “archaism” swept the land as artists and scribes meticulously recreated the art, architecture, and literature of their distant ancestors, seeking to recapture the magic of a purer, stronger past. This newfound independence, however, was tragically brief. To the east, a new empire, even vaster and more powerful than the Assyrians, was rising: the Achaemenid Persians. In 525 BCE, the Persian king Cambyses II, son of Cyrus the Great, invaded Egypt. At the decisive Battle of Pelusium, a strategic fortress on the eastern frontier, the Egyptian army was crushed. Legend tells that the Persians, knowing the Egyptians’ reverence for cats, drove the animals before them, causing the Egyptian archers to hesitate. Whether true or not, the result was the same. The Pharaoh Psamtik III was captured, and Egypt fell. For the first time in its long history, the country was not just ruled by foreigners who adopted its customs, but was reduced to a mere province, a “satrapy,” within a sprawling global empire. The Persian kings were crowned as pharaohs, but they ruled from distant capitals through governors. Heavy taxes, military garrisons, and periodic suppression of Egyptian religion bred deep resentment. Egypt was no longer the center of the world; it was a wealthy but subjugated possession. Despite the weight of Persian rule, the Egyptian spirit of independence refused to die. The next two centuries were punctuated by a series of fierce, often successful, but ultimately doomed revolts. For a brief period of about 60 years, native rulers managed to break free, forming the 28th, 29th, and 30th Dynasties. They fought desperately, hiring Greek mercenaries and forging alliances to hold the Persian behemoth at bay. The last of these native-born pharaohs was Nectanebo II, a king who ruled for 18 years and oversaw a flurry of building projects in a classic Egyptian style. But the Persian Empire, regrouped and determined, returned in force. In 343 BCE, faced with an overwhelming invasion, Nectanebo II gathered what treasure he could and fled south to Nubia, vanishing from history. With his flight, nearly three thousand years of continuous, native pharaonic rule came to a quiet, tragic end. The final act of this long twilight arrived not from the east, but from the west. In 333 BCE, a young, brilliant Macedonian king named Alexander the Great shattered the Persian army and marched his forces towards Egypt. Weary of Persian oppression, the Egyptians did not resist; they welcomed him as a liberator. With masterful political theater, Alexander journeyed to the remote Siwa Oasis, where the oracle of Amun proclaimed him the son of the god, and therefore the legitimate pharaoh. He respected their traditions and founded a new capital, Alexandria, that would become a beacon of learning and culture for centuries. But his arrival was a definitive turning point. The age of Pharaonic Egypt was over. The Nile Valley now belonged to a new, Greek-speaking world, its destiny tied to the Mediterranean. The twilight had finally faded into night, and the dawn would reveal a completely different land.